Cory Lidle lawsuit settled for $2 mm

Hence why you pay $452K for a Cirrus thats really worth about 225-250k
 
Ish. Cirrus is not at fault in the least. It's the nutcases that built a huge tall building that gets in the way of airplanes. I'd bet the builders have deeper pockets than cirrus and the flight instructor combined.

Hence why you pay $452K for a Cirrus thats really worth about 225-250k
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Which is only worth about $80K total however the industry has been run through the ringer a few times before that.
 
And why Cirrus has the attitude that they'll spend money for lawyers rather than pay danegeld to the plaintiff's attorneys.
 
TMetzinger said:
And why Cirrus has the attitude that they'll spend money for lawyers rather than pay danegeld to the plaintiff's attorneys.
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Ohhh, good word of the day: danegeld :cheerswine:

Main Entry: dane·geld
Pronunciation: \ˈdān-ˌgeld\
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Date: before 12th century
: an annual tax believed to have been imposed originally to buy off Danish invaders in England or to maintain forces to oppose them but continued as a land tax
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Lest there be any confusion, this was a lawsuit against Lidle and the CFI by the insurance companies that had to pay claims for the damage their crash caused the people who lived in the building, and the $2M number was arrived at because each of the pilots had $1M insurance policies.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
Lest there be any confusion, this was a lawsuit against Lidle and the CFI by the insurance companies that had to pay claims for the damage their crash caused the people who lived in the building, and the $2M number was arrived at because each of the pilots had $1M insurance policies.
-harry
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That's wrong, too. Insurance company should pay the life insurance policy.
 
Don't you feel that Liddle and his CFI have a responsibility for flying thier plane into a building?
 
To add to confusion about 'what insurance companies should pay', after the waiting period, they often pay for suicide. Compare suicide to this crash. (it was not suicide. Careless or possibly negligent but not the intentional act such as suicide...for which companies do pay)
 
jtheune said:
Don't you feel that Liddle and his CFI have a responsibility for flying thier plane into a building?
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Irrelevant.

If it was not suicide (and there are NO indications it was) than it was an accident/mistake. That is why we HAVE insurance, to cover our "accidents and mistakes".

So now an insurance company can sue you for paying claims on the policy you took out for a mistake you made...which is why you took out the policy in the first place? :mad2:
 
tdager said:
So now an insurance company can sue you for paying claims on the policy you took out for a mistake you made...which is why you took out the policy in the first place? :mad2:
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I don't think that is happening in this case.


Trapper John
 
OK..then I read it wrong....thanks.
 
AuntPeggy said:
That's wrong, too. Insurance company should pay the life insurance policy.
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If you belive the news report, it wasn't life insurance:

"$1 million liability policies each"
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The report also stated that the insurance companies settled for the liability policy payout and they didn't intend to go after the estates assets. The insurance companies just were trying to get their peice of the liability payout to cover some of their losses for the pilots mistake which the liability insurance was there to cover.
 
Missa said:
If you belive the news report, it wasn't life insurance:



The report also stated that the insurance companies settled for the liability policy payout and they didn't intend to go after the estates assets. The insurance companies just were trying to get their peice of the liability payout to cover some of their losses for the pilots mistake which the liability insurance was there to cover.
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That's better. I misunderstood.
 
tdager said:
Irrelevant.

If it was not suicide (and there are NO indications it was) than it was an accident/mistake. That is why we HAVE insurance, to cover our "accidents and mistakes".

So now an insurance company can sue you for paying claims on the policy you took out for a mistake you made...which is why you took out the policy in the first place? :mad2:
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I believe this case involved the apartment owners' insurance companies suing Lidle's and the CFI's ins. co. for amounts paid on behalf of the owners.

For instance, I fly my plane into your house. Your homeowners ins. pays $500K to rebuild your house. Your ins. co. then has the right to sue me, personally, and my insurance company (if I have one) to recover the amounts paid.

It's called "subrogation," and is a standard provision in every insurance policy out there. In essence, in exchange for providing you insurance, you pay premiums and give the insurance company any legal claims you might have. While it looks like quite the scam, I don't have much doubt that your premiums would be considerably higher without it.

It's worth knowing that in these kinds of accidents, be the aviation, automobile, etc., it's generally two insurance companies suing each other, rather than the individuals involved.
 
Obi Heed Kenobi said:
I believe this case involved the apartment owners' insurance companies suing Lidle's and the CFI's ins. co. for amounts paid on behalf of the owners
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This makes much more sense. Earlier posts made it sound like Lidle's own insurer was suing his estate and AFaIK that's not allowed. If some form of fraud was committed the insurer could potentially wiggle out of paying the claim but that's different than suing your own client to pay for a covered claim.
 
What insurance company (or more specifically who's insurer)? It doesn't seem plausible that underwriter of the liability insurance on the airplane could go after Lidle if he was the policy owner. So who was suing who here?
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It is as David said above. The people who owned apartments in the building filed claims with their own insurance companies for the damage to their apartments, and their insurance companies said they paid out $16.5M in such claims.

Then the apartment owners' insurance companies said "let's try and get back some of that money by suing the guys in the plane who caused all this". They looked at the assets of the pilots, and came to the conclusion that about all they'd be able to squeeze out of them would be $2M that could be extracted based on each of the pilots having $1M of liability insurance.

This is "subrogation", the apartment owners insurance companies paid out their claims, and then turned around and sought compensation from the guys who actually caused the event.

This isn't the end of the suing, as the estates of the two pilots are seeking out money from Cirrus.
-harry
 
gismo said:
This makes much more sense. Earlier posts made it sound like Lidle's own insurer was suing his estate and AFaIK that's not allowed. If some form of fraud was committed the insurer could potentially wiggle out of paying the claim but that's different than suing your own client to pay for a covered claim.
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Right. Every now and then you'll get a case where an insurer is disputing its obligation to pay, and those can end up in litigation between the insurer and the insured - as a general matter, however, those involve the contractual obligations between the parties.

It's one of very few contractual issues where uber-technical interpretations of contractual language can be important. But, that's not so much the law, as insurance agreements being uber-technical - it's just the nature of the beast. Fortunately, those types of disagreements only happen in instances where both parties to the insurance policy are people who are sophisticated in understanding these issues - for instance, an insurance policy covering commercial construction.

All-in-all, I hate insurance law. :)
 
mantakos said:
...

This is "subrogation", the apartment owners insurance companies paid out their claims, and then turned around and sought compensation from the guys who actually caused the event.

....
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The thing that always pops up in the back of my mind is: "if my insurer gets to recover whatever benefits it paid to me through the other guy's insurer, then the insurance company is making a killing off the premiums I pay...."

Which makes me really want to know how premiums are calculated. While I assume that my premiums would be higher if subrogation didn't exist, I don't actually know that to be true - for instance, are those premiums calculated with the assumption that subrogation won't be available?
 
mantakos said:
This isn't the end of the suing, as the estates of the two pilots are seeking out money from Cirrus.
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Excluding all the whiney 'it's not our fault we did something stupid' mentality of today's society; Precisely why is Cirrus in the food chain on this? As I understand it, the two people sitting in the seats ran a perfectly good fully operational airplane into a building. The plane was just doing what it was told to do. Any vehicle manufacturer should not be held responsible for a crash if the operator at the controls did something incredibly stupid and got themselves killed.
 
... are those premiums calculated with the assumption that subrogation won't be available?
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According to the claims of the insurance companies, they paid out $14.5M more in claims than they were able to subrogate.
-harry
 
... Precisely why is Cirrus in the food chain on this? ...
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Probably because the plaintiffs have no money, and would like some, and they found some lawyers who believe that they can use past instances of Cirrus control malfunctions to create sufficient doubt in the minds of a jury to be able to extract some.
-harry
 
fgcason said:
Excluding all the whiney 'it's not our fault we did something stupid' mentality of today's society; Precisely why is Cirrus in the food chain on this? As I understand it, the two people sitting in the seats ran a perfectly good fully operational airplane into a building. The plane was just doing what it was told to do. Any vehicle manufacturer should not be held responsible for a crash if the operator at the controls did something incredibly stupid and got themselves killed.
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That's primarily the point of my original post. I understand if the product, whatever it is, clearly failed, and such failure was due to design or manufacturing. But I've seen nothing to indicate that is so in this case. So, enter the trial lawyers, because you can't exclude the whiney "it's not our fault" mentality. So, Cirrus spends enormous money defending itself, even if it is found not to be at fault. So even if they win, they lose, as does any plaintiff in such situation.

Lawsuit abuse shut down the industry once. Nothing says it can't happen again. :mad3:
 
gismo said:
This makes much more sense. Earlier posts made it sound like Lidle's own insurer was suing his estate and AFaIK that's not allowed. If some form of fraud was committed the insurer could potentially wiggle out of paying the claim but that's different than suing your own client to pay for a covered claim.
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always read the news artical, not just the posts. :rolleyes:
 
mantakos said:
According to the claims of the insurance companies, they paid out $14.5M more in claims than they were able to subrogate.
-harry
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In the Lidle case? Yikes! Assuming that number to be entirely accurate...just...wow.

At any rate, with that number in mind, keep in mind what I said earlier: it's often insurance companies, rather than named individuals, driving lawsuits.

With that in mind, don't be so quick to put the blame for the suits against Cirrus on the shoulders of the estates (or the widows and families). It very well could be that both the owners' and the pilots' insurance companies are responsible for the suit(s) against Cirrus.

I don't know that to be true, as I'm (perhaps obviously) not familiar with these cases. All I'm saying is that, based on my experience, it's not out of the realm of possibility.
 
nddons said:
That's primarily the point of my original post. I understand if the product, whatever it is, clearly failed, and such failure was due to design or manufacturing. But I've seen nothing to indicate that is so in this case. So, enter the trial lawyers, because you can't exclude the whiney "it's not our fault" mentality. So, Cirrus spends enormous money defending itself, even if it is found not to be at fault. So even if they win, they lose, as does any plaintiff in such situation.

Lawsuit abuse shut down the industry once. Nothing says it can't happen again. :mad3:
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Take a look at what I wrote about insurance companies driving litigation. This *might* not be an instance in which evil lawyers are causing the problem.

Oh, and Cirrus likely isn't directly paying its legal bills. Unless it's self-insured (which I really doubt), Cirrus' insurer is paying the legal bills. Of course, Cirrus (and other insureds with the same company) pay those through premiums.
 
They were pretty fancy apartments that good ol' Corey wrecked. If that crash happens in, say, upstate Mississippi, I'm going to bet subrogation will cover 100% of the insco loss.

David, per your question about why you pay the premia if the insco will just go out and subrogate? It's to cover them when your screwup (hypothetically, of course) causes other inscos to subrogate against yours!!!

Nonetheless, insurance is a racket, IMHO.
 
nddons said:
That's primarily the point of my original post. I understand if the product, whatever it is, clearly failed, and such failure was due to design or manufacturing. But I've seen nothing to indicate that is so in this case. So, enter the trial lawyers, because you can't exclude the whiney "it's not our fault" mentality. So, Cirrus spends enormous money defending itself, even if it is found not to be at fault.
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Even if they aren't found to be at fault? They shouldn't even be in the loop to start with as long as the plane didn't fall apart and cause the crash.

Kinda makes you want to go out, rent a car, bash it into a stationary rock in a parking lot then sue the outboard boat motor manufacturers on the opposite coast since they're obviously at fault for causing the crash just to see how much you can win from the boat motor manufacturers. Even if by some miracle you don't win, you can still shut their business down by cleaning out their bank account.

So even if they win, they lose, as does any plaintiff in such situation.

Lawsuit abuse shut down the industry once. Nothing says it can't happen again. :mad3:
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So it's really all about money, not about justice or right and wrong or doing the right thing. Just straight up legalized robbery from the innocent even when they're not even involved and pay out to the despicable ones no matter what. Understood. Thanks for the clarification.
 
I personally believe if we had a system where the loser pays all fees, including both sides attorney fees, much of this abuse would not happen.
 
fgcason said:
... Just straight up legalized robbery from the innocent even when they're not even involved and pay out to the despicable ones no matter what.
....
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Do you have some kind of insider information regarding fault or "innocence," as you've put it?

Keep in mind that it's society - not engineers, not pilots - that sets the standard of conduct it expects. It does that through juries. I'm awaiting the predictable response of "bovine juries," but perhaps you ought to try sitting on one in a complicated case - or maybe you ought to see what's involved in a complicated case at all - before you make judgments.

Don't like it? Come up with a better system.
 
Lidle decision goes to Cirrus.

Best,

Dave

A Manhattan federal jury took just three hours Tuesday to find mechanical problems did not cause the October 2006 plane wreck that killed Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle.

The panel's verdict came quickly in a lawsuit that was very simple: The widows of Lidle and his flight instructor blamed a steering lockup for the crash, while defendant Cirrus Design Corp. cited pilot error.

http://tinyurl.com/3nb4nd9
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Lidle decision goes to Cirrus.

Best,

Dave

A Manhattan federal jury took just three hours Tuesday to find mechanical problems did not cause the October 2006 plane wreck that killed Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle.

The panel's verdict came quickly in a lawsuit that was very simple: The widows of Lidle and his flight instructor blamed a steering lockup for the crash, while defendant Cirrus Design Corp. cited pilot error.

http://tinyurl.com/3nb4nd9
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Nice to see the legal system actually works once in a while.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Lidle decision goes to Cirrus.

Best,

Dave

A Manhattan federal jury took just three hours Tuesday to find mechanical problems did not cause the October 2006 plane wreck that killed Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle.

The panel's verdict came quickly in a lawsuit that was very simple: The widows of Lidle and his flight instructor blamed a steering lockup for the crash, while defendant Cirrus Design Corp. cited pilot error.

http://tinyurl.com/3nb4nd9
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I find myself wondering if the plaintiff's lawyer presented any evidence that there was a steering lockup, or if he was basically just saying, "It could have happened, therefore it did happen."
 
Palmpilot said:
I find myself wondering if the plaintiff's lawyer presented any evidence that there was a steering lockup, or if he was basically just saying, "It could have happened, therefore it did happen."
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I was also wondering what evidence the P's lawyer had.

If all that existed was your quote, this case should not have made it to trial. Considering that Cirrus probably had pretty good lawyers, I'm inclined to think that there must have been - at least in the judge's eyes - some kind of evidence supporting the Plaintiff's claim.

Keep in mind that this litigation was probably "expert-driven." As in, hired guns. Regardless, if there's evidence supporting a party's position, a judge is not allowed to assess its credibility - if there's evidence supporting a party's position, the case must go to trial, and the jury (or judge in a bench trial) must assess the credibility of the evidence and decide what happened.

Put differently, if Plaintiff had actual evidence that could be pointed to saying "mechanical failure," then the case had to go trial (absent a settlement or voluntary dismissal).

But, if all that Plaintiff had was conjecture, then the case shouldn't have made it to trial.

Hope that makes sense. It's kind of a difficult concept to explain, unless you see it in action.
 
Obi Heed Kenobi said:
I was also wondering what evidence the P's lawyer had.

If all that existed was your quote, this case should not have made it to trial. Considering that Cirrus probably had pretty good lawyers, I'm inclined to think that there must have been - at least in the judge's eyes - some kind of evidence supporting the Plaintiff's claim.

Keep in mind that this litigation was probably "expert-driven." As in, hired guns. Regardless, if there's evidence supporting a party's position, a judge is not allowed to assess its credibility - if there's evidence supporting a party's position, the case must go to trial, and the jury (or judge in a bench trial) must assess the credibility of the evidence and decide what happened.

Put differently, if Plaintiff had actual evidence that could be pointed to saying "mechanical failure," then the case had to go trial (absent a settlement or voluntary dismissal).

But, if all that Plaintiff had was conjecture, then the case shouldn't have made it to trial.

Hope that makes sense. It's kind of a difficult concept to explain, unless you see it in action.
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Let me put this into layman's terms (as a layman myself).

There are two motions to cut a trial short: A motion to dismiss (made by the defendant) and a motion for summary judgement (made by the plaintiff).

In a motion to dismiss, the judge is required to take all the plaintiff's statements as being true. If given that, there is insufficient evidence to support the complaint, then the case is dismissed.

In the motion for summary judgement, the opposite is true...all the defendant's claims are deemed true, and if they still don't have a defense, the case is decided against them and they lose.

Now, when both of these fail, it goes to a full trial with a jury (or judge acting a trier of fact) where the relative merits and credibility of the evidence is finally weighed with no such presumptions.
 
Palmpilot said:
I find myself wondering if the plaintiff's lawyer presented any evidence that there was a steering lockup, or if he was basically just saying, "It could have happened, therefore it did happen."
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According to the article, it sounds like the 'evidence' was that he had flown that turnaround 4 times before without crashing into a building, therefore it must have been a steering lockup that caused him to crash the fifth time around.
 
Fearless Tower said:
According to the article, it sounds like the 'evidence' was that he had flown that turnaround 4 times before without crashing into a building, therefore it must have been a steering lockup that caused him to crash the fifth time around.
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Of course, because the winds in NYC are exactly the same every day! :rolleyes:
 
EdFred said:
Of course, because the winds in NYC are exactly the same every day! :rolleyes:
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There is no transference of money for an "act of God". Did the suit seek correction of the alleged product defect? It is obvious it was all about moeny.
 
Aztec Driver said:
I personally believe if we had a system where the loser pays all fees, including both sides attorney fees, much of this abuse would not happen.
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Better yet, let's have the losing lawyer pay.
 
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